Melissa's Keynotes, Workshops, and Trainings
Renowned for her innovative, thought provoking, and award winning keynotes, workshops, and trainings, Melissa can tailor content to fit the needs of organizations. Below are some examples of her current work to spark ideas for how she can meet your needs.
Redefine Beauty: The Power of Storytelling
Popular children’s entertainment often features the villain as facially disfigured or disabled. This type of narrative solidifies in a child’s developing brain and generates fear, bullying, and poor mental and behavioral health outcomes. For children with disabilities, this narrative can lead to a fundamental and lasting disconnection from society, cognitive trauma, and internalized
shame.
In this uplifting and connected session, Melissa guides participants through the foundations of storytelling and uses her own story to help the audience release false and harmful narratives in search of the real stories of disability. Melissa applies best practices in child mental health, brain development, and imaginative storytelling to teach the history of disability and to unearth a new definition of connected beauty.
This session is designed for children ages 10-18.
Perfect and Pretty: Helping Kids Navigate Physical Appearance, Disability, Bullying, and Self-Worth
Appearance-targeted bullying is one of the top and most damaging forms of school bullying today. It carries lasting impacts for body image and mental health outcomes, and it is far worse for kids with disabilities. The burden to explain, comfort, and manage an entire school’s reaction to disability often falls on the child with a disability. Children are cognitively unable navigate the magnitude of this burden and suffer needlessly without adult intervention.
It’s imperative that parents, teachers, and administrators know how to manage these conversations with kids. In this session, Melissa uses best practices in child development to teach caregivers how to talk to kids about disability and physical appearance. Her approach centers on compassion, connection, and ongoing support.
This session is designed for parents, teachers, school administrators, and pediatric health professionals.
Forget Flawless: Physical Appearance, Disability, Trauma, and Self-Worth
We all come into the workplace carrying the foundational narratives we inherited as children.
These ingrained scripts link success to physical appearance. Beyond our education and work experience, what we look like matters.
In this session, Melissa guides participants through the fairytale beauty narrative, the history of disfigurement and disability, and the modern confines of physical appearance. She unearths how physical appearance impacts how we treat each other and how to build healthier and more connected workplaces.
This session is for employees at all levels in all types of organizations.
Healing Government from Within: How to Navigate the Political Divide and Restore Trust
We are living through a period of low trust in government. Once a noble profession, public servants now find themselves fatigued and afraid as they struggle to navigate partisan tension
and complex social problems.
In this session, Melissa explores how and why we lost trust and how to rebuild it. She shares strategies for cultivating teams of exceptional talent and innovation capable of leading across
the political divide. She incorporates systemic data and best practices in behavioral mental health to help government leaders build teams strong enough to flourish in the toughest times.
This session is designed for Federal, State, and Local government organizations and elected
officials.
Leading Joyful, Innovative, and High-Performing Teams
Much of the leadership advice available today is outdated and harmful. From navigating remote work and equity to the cost of child care and social unrest, leaders need to shift and combine systemic life outcome data with best practices in innovation to build a resilient and joyful workplace. With nearly a decade of experience in leading highly-engaged teams at the frontlines of society’s toughest challenges, Melissa offers tools to help organizations build connected teams capable of delivering extraordinary results.
This session is designed for employees at all levels in all types of organizations.
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